Reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition systems can include a plurality of airborne platforms or air vehicles, each carrying a plurality of sensors that are used to collect information about an area under surveillance. The airborne platforms can communicate with requesters, which can include persons or equipment, that desire access to data collected by the sensors.
Two primary factors in the operation of such surveillance systems are the time required to communicate among system components and users, and the positions of the sensors. In many cases requesters may not be aware of the location of the air vehicles, the availability of the sensors, and/or the tasking needs imposed on the vehicles or sensors. In addition, the sensors may not know the needs of the requesters in a timely manner.
Time is a factor since the human requesters may not be able to think as an aggregate nor visualize the whole requester/sensor configuration given multiple collecting platforms or systems of sensors. Communication bandwidth, the amount of data to be transmitted, and the distance the data must be communicated also affect response time.
There is a need for a situation awareness system that can provide optimal placement of sensors and reduced time for disseminating the collected information.